books down from the shelves, drawers opened and emptied, framed photographs and certificates taken apart. It looked as if the place had been randomly searched, which was their intention.
“Nothing else?” Kangas asked.
Mustapha shook his head.
Kangas took out a plastic envelope that held a dozen strips of sticky tape each holding a fingerprint or partial print and transferred the prints around the apartment—doorknobs, countertops, and the woman’s purse and Givens’s wallet, which were first emptied of money and credit cards.
The entire operation had taken them less than seven minutes before they cracked the door to make sure that nothing moved in the parking lot, and then calmly walked back to the SUV and drove off, Mustapha behind the wheel this time as Kangas got on the cell phone.
Remington answered on the first ring. “Yes.”
“The problem has been taken care of.”
“Both problems?”
The question was more than rude, putting in doubt his ability and judgment, and Kangas bridled, but he held back a sharp answer. Remington might not have proper manners, he was a Brit after all, but he did know what he was doing, and the pay was good. The problem was Kangas had never much cared for taking orders. And he certainly never liked smug bastards who didn’t show proper respect. It was one of the reasons he’d left the Company, which was about little more than suits giving orders, many of which never made any sense because the bastards giving them either didn’t know what the hell they were talking about, or they’d had their noses so far up someone’s ass they couldn’t come up for air.
“Yes, sir, both problems,” he said after a brief hesitation.
They were back out on University heading toward the Beltway, traffic very light, when a pair of unmarked cars moving very fast passed them and pulled into the driveway of the apartment complex.
FBI, Kangas figured, and he glanced at Mustapha. They had cut it close this time.
“Do you have a delivery?” Remington asked.
“Yes,” Kangas said. “When?”
“Morning. Seven o’clock.”
Kangas wanted to ask why the delay if the operation had been important, but again he held back from the question. “As you wish,” he said.
“Make damn sure you come in clean,” Remington ordered brusquely. “No fuckups.”
The day would come, Kangas promised himself, when Remington would apologize for his incredible rudeness and lack of respect. It would be the last thing he did before he died.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
SIX
It was four a.m. in Washington when the CIA’s executive Gulfstream touched down at Andrews Air Force Base and quickly taxied over to a hangar well away from operations, and then inside, where its engines spooled down.
Katy had taken a light sedative just after they’d left Sarasota, but she hadn’t managed to get much sleep, and now she looked like hell, her hair a mess, her makeup smeared, and her eyes red and puffy. But she didn’t seem to care about her appearance or anything else, and McGarvey was worried about her.
“We’re here, sweetheart,” he said; she looked up at him but didn’t say anything.
A half-dozen Company security officers in dark blue Windbreakers were waiting with a pair of Cadillac Escalade SUVs inside the hangar. One of them was speaking into his lapel mike when the flight attendant opened the hatch, and McGarvey helped Katy to the steps.
“Thank you,” he told the young woman, who’d been solicitous but not intrusive on the flight.
A ground crewman opened the cargo bay hatch and took out the McGarveys’ hanging bag and overnight case, which one of the security officers took and placed in the back of the lead car.
It had been fifteen years ago, maybe twenty, when McGarvey had returned from an assignment that had gone bad in Chile, when Katy had given him her ultimatum: either me or the CIA. It hadn’t mattered that he had assassinated a woman—the wife of a general—who he’d thought was innocent, that he had blood on his hands, that he was battered physically and emotionally; he hadn’t been given the time to explain and ask for help. So he’d walked out and had run to Switzerland, throwing away his marriage and young daughter. Because he had been too proud, and because he’d had nothing to give at that moment.
But now it was his turn. Katy was battered beyond anything he’d ever endured in his life, and she needed him more than he’d ever imagined anyone could need someone.
“Easy now,” he said, taking her arm and helping her down the boarding stairs.
One of the security officers came